A Tale of Twins
by Magwai
Summary: Marcy and Morgana are a witch hunting team. They've always been a team, since they were born, actually. These twin magical girls travel across the world, hunting witches in cities that don't have magical girls. But as they delve further and further into the world of magical girls and witches, they run the risk of sinking into despair.
1. Chapter 1

{Welcome! I do not own Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The only things that are mine are my OCs}

"Morgana! On your left!" I shouted, slicing through another of the witch's familiars with surprising ease. This was a newborn witch, so it was relatively weak. Apparently no one had told the witch's familiars that they were supposed to be weak. Morgana and I were surrounded by human-sized marionettes and teddy bears. However they all looked like they were made of paper, and drawn by a small child with a dark imagination. The world around us, the labyrinth, was full of bright colors outline by thick black lines. Everything stood out, so it was hard sometimes to tell what was a familiar and was simply part of the scenery.

Pushing two shields into the floor, Morgana provided us with cover. The shields, golden like the sun and stronger than steel, grew until the familiars could no longer climb over them. I held my ax firmly, using it to get over the shields, then sprung forward, cutting down the macabre toys. However, familiars were like the heads of a hydra, when I cut one down, two more seemed to spring up. Using her goggles to zoom in on the environment surrounding us, which looked like the playground from hell, Morgana motioned in the direction of the door, leading us further into the witch's labyrinth. Deeper and deeper we went until the last door opened, revealing a Victorian style girl's bedroom. Sitting on a bed that was probably 100 feet high, was the witch.

"A china doll," Morgana whispered behind me. "It's a china doll." She was right. This was probably the most humanoid witch we had ever been up against, and to be completely, honest, it was very...uncomfortable to say the least. To see a monster like that looking almost human...I tried not to think about it.

Morgana's shield shrunk down to the size of a Frisbee and the edges became razor sharp. This was one of the things Morgana's magic could do- create shields that can grow and shrink- and knowing what she was doing, I charged the witch, who moved slowly and almost daintly. It was as if she wanted to be regal, but was too afraid to take the throne.

The space between the witch and I seemed to be getting farther and farther. One thing I'd never understand, no matter how long I've been doing this, was how these witches could seemingly bend the rules of time and space to suit their needs. The part about my magic though, was that I could take that advantage away from them. I jumped, then disappeared, only to reappear above the witch's head, ax in hand. With the witch's attention focused solely on me, I brought down the ax which was gradually getting heavier and heavier (the other half of my magic), on her arms, which she brought up to protect herself. They shattered as the ax sliced through them.

Shards of the witch's arms flew everywhere, cascading over the witch like hail. Deadly, razor sharp hail. The witch's dress was torn by the broken pieces of her arms, leaving her even more exposed.

Five shining discs flew into the midsection of the witch, where, once embedded in the witch, Morgana made them grow and grow until the witch's legs buckled under the excess weight and shattered completely. Morgana was breathing heavily, the stress of the hunt and the pain of the cut on her arm catching up to her.

That was one of many differences between Morgana and myself; I liked hunting witches. It was thrilling and made me feel alive. Morgana, on the other hand, hated hunting witches, and only did it because it came with the wish. Speaking of that…

"How about today?" I asked as our surreal surroundings faded to an abandoned house, which was much less vibrant, but still very creepy.

Morgana shook her head, as she did every time I asked. It had become a ritual for us, me asking her every day what she had wished for. Even though we were twins, and very close, Morgana had not told me what she wished for. I knew it had something to do with the profound change in our parent's attitude towards us, because they had gone from extremely overprotective to almost uncaring overnight. But I also knew that Morgana was way too smart and cared about our parents to wish that they would stop caring about us.

No, that was something I would wish. I didn't, but I did think about it. My wish was simple. I wanted to leave home whenever I wanted, and Kyubey granted that wish by giving me the ability to teleport wherever I wanted to go. I was fairly certain Morgana had figured out my wish, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out hers.

It had to do with her shields, and the sudden apathy of our parents...Morgana was good at figuring out puzzles like this. Too bad she was the puzzle.

Picking up the Grief Seed, and then using the first of the two uses it had, I sighed. "I just don't understand why you won't tell me. I know it has to do with our parents, but I don't know why you would wish for them not to care."

Morgana shifted her weight, clearly uncomfortable. "It's more complicated than that. My wish had….unforeseen consequences, and I know you'd be angry if you found out my wish."

I rolled my eyes, handing her the Grief Seed. "It's your wish. You used for yourself, and that's fine. We should uses our wishes for ourselves."

"That's just it," Morgana said so quietly I could barely hear it. I decided to drop the topic for today. Maybe she'd tell me tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

{Magwai here! *insert disclaimer here* Thank for giving my story a chance, and I'm really excited to continue this story.}

* * *

><p>The walk home was a short one, made a million times shorter with my teleportation abilities. I made sure to teleport back into our fort in the backyard, which, to my eternal disappointment, was not up in a tree, but sitting on the ground. Morgana and I used to play pretend together all the time. Whether we were knights and dragons, teacher and student, or pirates and sailors, it became clear to our parents that we needed some place to play out our elaborate stories.<p>

For years, our father had promised us a treehouse, a real treehouse, in the huge oak tree in our backyard. Morgana and I drew up plans for what the treehouse would look like. There was going to be a huge library for Morgana to read in. For me, there was going to be a trampoline and tunnels that connect different rooms. On the very top was an observatory. We would watch the stars together, and make wishes. Before we were magical girls together, we were stargazers together.

Of course, we both greatly overestimated our father's handyman skills, and we ended up with what might as well have been a shack. It was poorly made, and most of the time, when I would try to help him, he'd just get angry because, "You're just a kid, so don't try to tell me how to do this!" When I argued back, saying that I was also stuck watching the home improvement shows he always wanted to watch, I was banned from the fort for two weeks. The joke was on them though, because Morgana refused to play in the fort for two weeks. In retrospect, this was probably a good warning of what was to come. My parents wouldn't listen, I'd argue back, and then get in trouble. And all the while, Morgana would be put in the middle.

That was the thing I regretted the most, honestly. That whenever I got in a fight with our parents, Morgana was always involved. Sometimes it was her own doing, sometimes it wasn't. I hated throwing Morgana under the bus with me, so I would never rat her out for any of the things we did together, but she would always fess up.

Sitting in the fort, Morgana took out the first aid kit we had stashed in the fort. We had also stockpiled some food, some clothes, and a bunch of maps. It made our job as magical girls easier.

"Give me that," I said, taking the first aid kit and treating Morgana's cut. I gently dabbed at the cut with a disinfectant soaked cotton ball, trying not to notice how Morgana would flinch every now and then. Kyubey had assured us, after I had broken my arm during a witch hunt, that wounds would heal quickly, taking less than a day for total regeneration. But when my sister had a cut like that on her arm, and was clearly in pain, I was less likely to trust the space ferret and more likely to trust myself.

"Thank you, Marcy," Morgana said quietly, as I bandaged up her arm. I nodded, and tensed as I heard someone open the backdoor. Morgana and I lived in the fear that one day everything would go back to the way it was, and that we would be grounded for life. Who knows if this was some elaborate prank our parents were pulling.

"It's just Morgana and Marcy," I heard Mom tell Dad, seeing us through the one window in the fort, and with that she went back inside. That was it. That was our relationship with our parents. Whenever we talked to them, they were completely disinterested, and wouldn't even look at us anymore.

It was hard, not being able to talk to your parents about anything. It was harder for Morgana, I knew, because she was infinitely closer to them. For me...I missed the arguing. I missed the interaction. What had we done wrong? Was it our wishes? Was it my wish? Was it Morgana's? Some nights I sat awake as theses questions ran through my head, back to back, like a river of questions that felt like I would drown in all of them.

It made being a magical girl easier, though, especially the type of magical girl we were. Because I could teleport wherever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, Morgana and I would teleport to different cities that didn't have a magical girl to protect them. We used to rely on Kyubey to tell us which cities were in the need of a magical girl, but after the fifth skirmish with other magical girls, we learned to rely on our own intuition. Morgana kept track of suicides and fatal car crashes in cities across the US, and when there seemed to be a spike in deaths, we would go there, taking out any outbreaks of witches.

It was almost like being bounty hunters. The Grief Seeds were our reward, and we would track down witches in cities across the country. If we planned it right, we could get about 4 Grief Seeds on one visit to a different city. Morgana was the queen of planning, so we never were unprepared for a witch.

"I'll check the news and see where we should go next," Morgana said, standing up, and leaving the fort. I finished putting the first aid supplies away, and then ran to catch up with her.

"Hey, don't do that today. We just beat a witch. We can afford to take tomorrow off," I said, putting my arm around her shoulders. Morgana shook her head.

"Maybe we can, but the girls in the cities without magical girls can't," she replied. I sighed, because I knew she was right. Other magical girls had it easy. They just had one city to take care of. Morgana and I had every other city to look after.

I decided to approach a topic we'd been putting off all summer. "What about when school starts again? We can't leave for days and then come back without any consequences. Mom and Dad might not notice or care, but our classmates, our teachers, and the principal will."

Morgana didn't stop. "We'll figure something out. Maybe we can double up right before school starts, take out as many witches as we can, and then it won't be so bad when we get back to school," she replied.

"That's just a Band-Aid on a gaping wound and you know it," I countered.

Morgana turned to me, angry. " Well, what do you think we should do? Just let innocent people die?"

I shook my head. "No, but we should try and push Kyubey to recruit more magical girls, so it isn't so hard on the both of us. We both need breaks sometimes. And you know it."

"Then the perfect system, the steady flow of Grief Seeds, will be ruined," Morgana said.

"It's far from perfect," I said, walking past her into the house. I made a beeline for the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water and slamming the door shut. Mom, who was making dinner, didn't even flinch. Angry from my fight with Morgana, I shouted, "Just yell at me already! I've been gone all day without telling you where I was going, and just got into a fight with Morgana! Just yell at me!"

I missed the fighting. I really did. Being ignored was a million times worse was then being yelled at. I just wanted some sort of acknowledgement that they were listening, that they cared. But all she said was, "I'm sure you'll work it out."

I screamed in frustration, then stormed up to my room. The worst thing about fighting with your twin was that there was nowhere to go really. We slept in a bunk bed, with Morgana on the bottom, and me on top. Morgana was already there, typing away on the computer, occasionally taking notes. She pointed to the stand next to the bed, where my glasses were neatly placed.

I never wore my glasses outside of the house. I hated them, and how our parents had gotten us the same glasses in different colors. They did that with everything. If I wanted a blue t-shirt, they'd get Morgana the same shirt in red. It was actually very annoying, especially considering our very different taste in clothes.

I grabbed my glasses, putting them on, and climbed into bed. I laid there for a while, curled up in my blanket, before I spoke up. " I'm just tired. I don't mind the fighting, and I don't mind the traveling, but I want to be able to do other things, like go to carnivals and movies and other normal kid stuff sometimes."

Morgana turned to me, smiling. "I know, Marcy. I feel the same way. But...we chose this. We chose to make the contract. No one forced us. So our loneliness and weariness are self-inflicted."

I just curled up even more. "That's the worst part."


	3. Chapter 3

Morgana shook me awake the next morning. She was always the first one to wake up, and then wake me up after. I groaned and turned away from her, trying my best to ignore her. A few seconds later, Morgana sighed, and left me in peace. I heard the closet door open, and some shuffling as Morgana picked up her outfit for the day.

The next thing I knew, there were clothes piled on top of me. Then shoes, my belt and my backpack.

"Get up and get dressed. We've got an outbreak in Salem," Morgana said, shoving maps and notebooks into her bag.

"Salem? Salem, New York? Salem, Oregon?" I said, begrudgingly getting up. I looked at the clothes Morgana had picked out for me, and groaned. A light raincoat and jeans. I knew exactly where we were going. "Not Salem-"

"Massachusetts," Morgana finished for me. "There's a chance of rain today. You might need the jacket."

"It's not the jacket I care about, it's the morbid irony of it. I mean, we're going to Salem, y'know, like the Salem witch hunts? And what are we gonna do? Hunt witches. I just have a bad feeling about this," I said pulling a white and blue baseball shirt over my head.

"Get over it," Morgana said, brushing her blonde hair and pulling it up into a ponytail. Once I was done putting on my jeans, I started brushing my own hair as Morgana went downstairs to eat breakfast. Morgana and I were identical twins-have I mentioned that yet? So my parents didn't get us different colored clothes just for the heck of it-they actually needed them to tell us apart. All of Morgana's clothes were red and black, and all of my clothes were blue and white.

I neatly braided my hair, and shoved my feet into my shoes. I grabbed my bag, putting in a change of clothes for both of us, and two Grief Seeds, just in case. I knew anger was one of the emotions that could cloud a Soul Gem, but probably because I was always angry to some extent, anger never clouded my Soul Gem.

It did, however, cloud Morgana's. Really easily too. Her Soul Gem never stayed completely clear for a long period of time. It worried me sometimes, how fast it could become dark. Something red caught my eye, and I jumped when I realized what it was. Morgana's Soul Gem. Her's was ruby red, while mine was sapphire blue. I picked it up and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

"Morgana!" I shouted barrelling into the kitchen. "You forgot your Soul Gem upstairs! You've really got to get better at remembering that. What if we had teleported to Salem before you realized that you forgot it? I'm just supposed to be seen with a lifeless body?"

Morgana rolled her eyes, taking her Soul Gem. "I knew where it was the whole time. I just left it there for now."

I furrowed my eyebrows, confused. Morgana had never acted this...flippant about her Soul Gem before. "You should wear it as a ring," I said finally, showing off my own silver ring.

"Mmhm," Morgana replied, spreading jam onto her toast.

I shook my head, walking into Dad's office.

If there's one good thing about have parents that are totally apathetic to what you do, it's that you can basically ask for any amount of money, and they'll give it to you. It was as if we were hungry and asking for food. They went through the motions of taking care of us, they just didn't care. And it wasn't as if we were annoying them and they just gave us what we asked for so we would leave them alone. It was just...weird.

That's how I got the money to pay for a hotel room in Salem, Massachusetts. It wasn't anything like stealing; our parents were giving us the money freely. It wasn't our fault they didn't care enough to ask why we needed it.

Okay, so maybe it was, but I used that to ease the guilt I felt every time they looked at us blankly and handed us the money we needed. Everyone has to have some way of coping with guilt, right? Mine was denial.

"Are you ready to go?" Morgana called from the bathroom, brushing her teeth.

"No, I haven't eaten breakfast yet," I said, walking back into the kitchen. I grabbed a boiled egg from the fridge, and an apple out of the fruit bowl. "Give me another fifteen minutes."

I heard Morgana groan, walking out into the kitchen, sitting next to me. "I wanted to get an early start on the witch hunt," she sighed.

I cringed at her choice of words. "Please don't call it a witch hunt. I really don't like the idea of hunting witches in Salem."

Morgana rolled her eyes for the second time that morning. "They weren't hunting actual wishes, you know. It was just mass hysteria."

"It was more than that," a familiar voice said from the window. It was the space ferret himself, Kyubey. "Some of the accused witches were, in fact, magical girls. The mass hysteria was caused by a particularly strong witch."

I groan, banging my head on the table. "Why would you tell us that? That makes me even more wary of this...mission."

"I have the utmost confidence in you two. As long as you fight together, you will be able to overcome any adversary," Kyubey said proudly.

"Can it, Kyubey. You know we're not exactly your biggest fans," I said, throwing out the pieces of the eggshell. "You've led us straight into danger before, and we're not so stupid to think you won't do it again."

Kyubey was silent for a second. "You know I didn't mean to get you into a fight with those magical girls. They weren't supposed to be-"

"In those cities? So you were policing where they should and shouldn't be hunting witches?" Morgana chimed in.

Picking up where Morgana left off, I asked, "So you know where all witches are at one time? How? Why don't you find potential magical girls in areas with the most witches? Why leave it solely to us?"

Kyubey was caught. He clearly wasn't going to tell us what was going on, so he just sighed. "That's irrelevant," he said, quickly exiting through the kitchen window.

A few seconds after he left, Morgana burst into laughter. It was something we always did when Kyubey came to visit. Neither of us trusted him, so we would constantly question him, hoping to catch him in a lie.

We both knew Kyubey lied. He'd lied to us from the very beginning. He'd willingly led us into other magical girls' territory, and made us out to be the bad guys. Kyubey had been trying to groom us into becoming these traveling magical girls, because of my teleportation ability. I mean, we became traveling magical girls anyway, but we did it our way. Morgana developed an accurate system to detect witches, and I figured out how to teleport without powering up.

Morgana tapped her nose thoughtfully (a strange gesture, I know, but it was a habit of hers.). "Do you think there's a link between the absence of magical girls in certain cities and the presence of so many witches in the same city?" she asked, turning to look at me.

I nodded. "Of course. The witches kill the magical girls, and then the witches grow in number."

Morgana shook her head. "But where do the witches come from?" she said. "I mean, the name itself, witches, implies that they're all female, and I doubt they reproduce like humans. If anything, they reproduce the thing is, no two witches are the same. Each one has unique abilities and unique labyrinths."

I frowned, not liking where this was going. "What are you getting at?"

"Why is it that every time there is a spike in witches, there is also a decrease in magical girls?" Morgana's voice was steadily increasing, to the point of shouting. "Because the witches killed them! That's it, end of story," I shouted. I knew what she was saying; I just didn't want to believe it.

"But they happen at the same time! It isn't 'magical girls die, then witches increases in number;' it's 'magical girls die as witches are increasing in number.' For every magical girl killed, another witch is born."

"Stop it! Magical girls die. Witches are born. There is no connection!"

"What happens when a Soul Gem is completely black?" she whispered. I shook my head.

"Do you really want to find out?" I retorted. I left the kitchen to get our bags. It was time to go to Salem.


	4. Chapter 4

{Sorry this took so long! In other news, I've started a Morgana and Marcy roleplaying blog on tumblr. The url is battleaxeandshield}

{Disclaimer: I do not own PMMM or the Hawthorne Hotel}

The hotel we stayed at was the Hawthorne Hotel. It was decorated to look like the 18th century, which did nothing for my fears of this town. Considering that it was summer, Salem was like any small town. It was a nice town, not unlike our small hometown in upstate New York, but I was still afraid. Something didn't feel right.

"There have been more and more reports of car accidents, a spike in suicides, and a tropical storm just missed Salem last week. The thing is, the storm made a beeline for Salem. It formed in colder waters, not too far away," Morgana explained as we unpacked. "That's unusual at best; impossible at worst."

"Once again, Morgana, not doing anything for my nerves," I said, looking at map of Salem, marker in hand. "How long did that lady say we had for our parents to show up?"

"24 hours. You had better go get Mom," Morgana said. Another thing we would do is teleport our parents to the hotels we were staying at to prove that we weren't alone. They would smile and nod at the front desk, briefly wonder how they got there, and then, when we got back to the hotel room, we would teleport them home. It was the perfect plan.

"Later. Right now I want to map out the area. Where did you say the highest number of deaths was?" I asked.

Morgana shifted uneasily. "I didn't…"

I stopped, and looked up at her. "Don't tell me it's in-"

"-the cemetery where the accused witches are buried," Morgana finished, lightly tugging on her ponytail. I threw the marker down on the map, and stomped back and forth across the room three times, and stopped with my forehead leaning against the window.

"A cemetery? Really?" I fumed, turning to look at her. "You know how I feel about us coming here, and you conveniently forget to mention that the labyrinth is most likely in a graveyard of accused witches. Morgana-"

"I knew if I said anything you wouldn't come!" Morgana pleaded. "I knew you'd be too scared-"

"Too scared? Of course I'd be too scared! Morgana, this place is where magical girls were actively persecuted and executed. Yes, I'm scared. I don't understand how you can be so...at ease with this situation," I said, my anger fading away near the end.

Morgana narrowed her eyes, her glasses framing her glare. "This is what we do, Marcy. This is the price of our actions. We are magical girls, and we fight witches."

Confusion and weariness were written all over my face. "But...dontcha ever wanna be more? Don't you want to be more than just a magical girl? Is that all that we are? Morgana, you keep talking like being a magical girl is this great, exalted title. It's not, Morg," I finished, using her nickname from when we were kids.

Morgana sighed deeply. "Let's just drop this topic for now and focus."

I shook my head, continuing to push the subject. "No, but really! Have you actually what you're going to do when you graduate high school?"

"We're not even in high school yet! We're-"

"Freshmen! In one month, we'll be high school freshmen. Morgana, why are you acting like this?" I asked. We were nearly shouting again, and my gaze wandered to the ring on Morgana's finger. It had lost it's luster, and the gem was darker than usual. Our fighting was clearly upsetting Morgana more than it was upsetting me. I ran a hand through my hair, and sighed. "Let's just forget about this. What was your plan again?"

Morgana and I spent the next half hour going over her plan, and by mid afternoon, Morgana and I were ready to look for the witch's labyrinth. While Morgana double checked our supplies, I teleported home.

Maybe I should explain what teleporting feels and looks like. I first discovered that teleportation was one of the special types of magic I could use when I was lazy and didn't want to get up and walk to the kitchen. That thought, the thought of just being somewhere else must have triggered the power, because the next thing I knew, there was a flash of blue light,then the in-between, and then I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen. There's a delay between disappearing and reappearing of about 3 seconds, but when you're in the "in-between," as I call it, it kind of feels like eternity. All you can see is a blur of scenery, moving faster the farther you want to go. The first time I teleported Morgana, she threw up from motion sickness. Its actually kinda beautiful, at least, for me it is.

Anyway, once I was home, I approached Mom, and told her what was happening, that we were going to a hotel, and that she just had to smile at the lady at the counter and say "Yes, I am their mother." Mom nodded with an absent minded smile on her face. Maybe I haven't done such a good job of explaining the way my parents are apathetic.

They're like puppets. They smile and nod and go along with whatever you say. They look like good parents, if not a bit distracted, but that's completely understandable with such hyperactive twin daughters. They agree with whatever Morgana and I say, and give us whatever we want. Maybe it's not entirely apathy, but actually numb compliance.

Mom and I teleported in an alleyway just outside of the hotel. I took her hand and led her to the front door. I held it open for her, and ultimately was pushed aside by a loud family leaving the hotel. For a brief second, I lost sight of her. The hotel lobby was very crowded at this time of day, and in Mom's...state, she could start talking to anyone about how "Yes, I am their mother," and forget to tell the lady at the front desk exactly what we had rehearsed.

I caught sight of her standing by a lamp, thankfully alone and not talking. I rushed over to her and very quietly asked her what she was going to tell the lady at the counter.

"Hello. My twin daughters checked in earlier today. I hope that they weren't any trouble. My daughters have free reign to come and go as they please, as long as they check with me first," she said her voice friendly, but with a blank look in her eyes. I nodded, and led Mom over to the front desk. The manager looked up, and I had to stifle a sigh of a relief when I realized that it was the same woman as before.

She obviously didn't see me, or didn't notice me, because she asked my mother if she wanted to check in. Mom blinked once, a clarity appearing in her eyes that was never there when she was talking to Morgana and I.

Mom shook her head, and said, "No, my twin daughters already checked in. I had to send them ahead while I took care of other matters. I just wanted to let you know that they have free reign to come and go as they please, as long as they check in with me beforehand, of course. I didn't want to leave the girls alone at home- they hate it when I have to go on business trips." Mom put her arm around me, like any mother would, and for a second I could pretend that we were a normal family. Her speech was clearer than I had heard in a long time. This always happened when she was talking around other people or just...not around Morgana and I.

The other woman blinked, taking in Mom's explanation, and nodded. Smiling, she replied, "Of course! Please enjoy your stay."

As we walked away from the front desk, Mom's eyes started to return to their normal glassy state. I sighed, taking her hand, and lead her to the elevator. We were alone in the elevator.

My hands were clenched at my sides as I stubbornly looked down, refusing to look at the reflection of a mother and daughter who weren't a family anymore.

Somewhere In Salem

Riley grinned, picking up the Grief Seed. Sure, Kyubey said her weapon was unconventional, and it took a lot of patience and memorization, something she had in spades now, but clearly it was working. This was her 3rd witch since becoming a Puella Magi two weeks ago. Everything was coming up roses, it seemed.

Her grades were better, her parents weren't yelling at her anymore, and she was finishing her school work faster than she had ever thought possible. If there was a downside to her wish, she wasn't seeing it.

Wishing away her ADHD was the best thing she'd ever done.


End file.
